Esme Yu
Design and Technology MFA
Parsons Paris
Graduates: 2026
Specialisms: Womenswear / Textiles / Apparel
My location: Paris, France
Esme Yu
First Name: Esme
Last Name: Yu
University / College: Parsons Paris
Course / Program: Design and Technology MFA
Graduates: 2026
Specialisms: Womenswear / Textiles / Apparel
My Location: Paris, France
About
Esme Yu is a womenswear designer and recent MFA Fashion Design graduate from Parsons Paris, with a First Class BA in Fashion from Edinburgh College of Art. Before completing her MFA, she worked as a designer at KWK by KAY KWOK, contributing to runway collections across ready-to-wear, accessories, leather and experimental fabrication.
Her practice combines historical research with a strong focus on construction, materiality and textile experimentation. Moving between tailoring and more fluid approaches to dress, she is interested in reinterpreting familiar clothing archetypes through subtle shifts in structure, surface and detail.Her work explores memory, absence and the traces left within garments, balancing conceptual research with clothes that remain grounded in the act of wearing.
WHAT IS MISSING REMAINS explores absence, memory and inherited silence through the language of dress. Rooted in Chantal Akerman’s Saute ma ville (1968) and post-war domestic life, the collection draws on 1940s utility clothing and military archetypes as traces of lives shaped by restraint and repetition. Familiar garments are disrupted through reversibility, exposed construction, faded surfaces and displaced details. Tailoring, lingerie and protective forms coexist throughout the collection, while material interventions suggest wear, erasure and memory. Rather than reconstructing the past, the project considers what remains when histories, roles and experiences are no longer fully visible.
Competitions
